


Carry On

by Morpheus626



Category: Saints Row
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25044862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: A Tumblr request from @gatticus: "Gatboss - Stop pretending like everything is fine! ♥"Some of the first pain I put my latest SR Boss, Ellis, through! The loss of Johnny, and how Ellis is handling it, or a lack thereof.
Relationships: Male Boss (Saints Row)/Johnny Gat
Kudos: 10





	Carry On

He wondered if this was what losing it felt like. If this was what it looked like, driving around Steelport alone in the middle of the night with the radio up just enough to hear. 

After all, the conversation came first. 

He could swear he could hear Gat as if he was sitting right next to him in the car. “Stop pretending like everything is fine. You’re so concerned about everybody else and how they’re dealin’ with this, but what about you?” 

“What about me?” Ellis muttered to the empty passenger seat. “I’m the Boss. I need to have my shit together. For them, and for the gang to survive out here. Shit’s crazy.” 

“Still human. Still need help, a break, someone to talk to. And lettin’ Shaundi and Pierce vent to you about missing me doesn’t count as gettin’ help for yourself.” 

“Like you’re one to talk,” Ellis spat back, and could see the exact look Johnny would have given him if he was there. “What about when Aish died?” 

“That’s a low fuckin’ blow, plus, you’re wrong. I had you. You stayed with me, let me vent, let me cry. I got through it because I had you, because you were my help. You need to do the same now.” 

In his mind’s eye, Johnny had taken off his sunglasses, and that always meant Shit Was Serious. 

“That was supposed to be you,” Ellis sighed, and wiped away a tear before it could obscure his vision as he sped through the empty opposite lane to get past a closed road. “You’re my help, the one I vent to. I don’t have that with anyone else, I’m not fuckin’ essentially married to anyone else!” 

The street lights glinted off the ring Gat had given him. One for Aisha, and one for him, and one for Gat, all of them matching but individualized just enough to know which ring belonged to who. His had a tiny E etched at the back of it, all he’d wanted for customization. Aisha and him had never been…like that, but since they were sharing Johnny, and doing so out of love and respect for each other, it felt only right that everybody’s rings should match. 

Now, he struggled to wear it. To take it off was impossible, because he barely ever had since Gat had given it to him. To leave it on hurt just as much, because it reminded him of how alone he was. His second in command, his lover, his rock in the storm, was gone, and there was not a damn thing he could do about it. No revenge he could take that would bring Johnny back. 

When Johnny’s voice came through again in his head, it was soft, sweet. “I know. And I’m not askin’ you to do that, unless you’d find someone that makes you happy. But I’ve got a feelin’ you won’t, just ‘cause you’re picky as fuck. Don’t know how I made the cut.” 

“You made the cut because you’re amazing, and kind, and smart, and the only man I wanted to spend my life with,” Ellis pulled over with a screech onto the grassy shoulder of the road and wept. “You dumb-ass. I should have stayed with you. Shaundi could have taken the parachute, I could have helped you fly the plane and fight off Loren’s people. You’d still be here!” 

“Or we’d both be dead,” he could see the shrug of Johnny’s shoulders. “You can’t know for sure. Why sit here and ponder it when it’s only gonna keep the wound open?” 

“Because I don’t want it to close,” Ellis admitted. “I don’t want you to be gone. And if you have to be gone, then I don’t want to lose my anger about it. That’s the only thing keeping me going some days. What else am I supposed to do anyway? They can’t find your body, so it feels…” 

“Like I’m still somewhere out there,” Gat finished. “That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” Ellis sighed, and drove the car down closer under the bridge, past the open parking lot, as close to the edge of the water as he dared. “It really fuckin’ would.” 

He locked the doors, turned off the car, and pulled off his leather jacket only to toss it over himself as a blanket. He could never sleep in any of the cribs, not even their HQ, and it wasn’t like anybody came looking for him anyways unless something went wrong. They’d call him if they needed him, and they probably wouldn’t, which was good. Meant he had capable people in his roster. 

That didn’t mean shit in the morning though, with the sun blinding him as it streamed in through the car windows, and his phone empty of any calls or texts. 

“I could just disappear,” he sighed as he sat up and pulled his jacket back on. “I really could. So long as someone was still giving orders, and it appeared to be coming from me, they’d never know. They wouldn’t miss a step, or blink.” 

He pulled his mirrored aviators from the glove box and put them on before pulling down the sun visor and using the mirror to check himself over. 

“You look like shit,” he muttered, ruffling his dark purple hair. It needed a touch-up, the black and grey roots were already showing. Gat would have made fun of him for it, about how the “kids” were turning him grey so early. 

But was it just the gang, or everything that resulted it from it that would make him eventually look like Father Christmas, that was the question.

He had no time to answer it now, as his phone finally rang. 

“The Deckers are-” 

“Where,” he interrupted flatly. 

“Uh…near Nobody Loves Me, there’s a-” 

“Great,” Ellis interrupted again, and ended the call with a tap to the Bluetooth hooked around his ear. He didn’t really feel like dealing with it, what he wanted was to drive all the way back to Stilwater, to his shitty little studio apartment he’d stayed in after breaking out of prison, where he and Gat had stayed after Aisha had died, where their relationship had bloomed and flourished every night that they were able to stay in and relax together, being a couple, not just gang leaders constantly on call like backwards firemen. 

But he couldn’t do that. And no one else was going to go take care of the mess the Deckers were currently making. 

He started the car, and tossed in his Queen mixtape CD into the CD player. The first few strains of Save Me woke him enough to finally put the car into gear and go. 

It’s what Johnny would have done. Kept carrying on. And for Johnny’s sake, he couldn’t do any less than that. 


End file.
